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June 30, 2009

From June 1, 1921 to December 31, 1924, individual manifests had to be completed and submitted to the immigration officers at the ports of arrival, instead of the large sheet passenger list manifests previously in use.

A form had to be submitted for each passenger, including children, except those in transit to the United States. This means that passengers proceeding directly to USA destinations from Canadian ports during 1919-1924, will not appear on a Form30A record. Because some immigration offices did continue using the big sheet manifests during Form 30A period, you might find USA destined passengers, but theSt. Albans Lists are a better source of information for these USA destined passengers.

Form 30A was discontinued as of January 1, 1925. At that time the use of large sheet manifests was reinstated.Each Form 30A usually included the following details:

name of ship;date of sailing;port and date of arrival;name;age;occupation;birthplace;race;citizenship;religion;destination; andname of the nearest relative in the country from which the immigrant came.

In the earlier version of Form 30A used in 1919, the names of accompanying dependents were usually included with the head-of-household, not on separate forms.

Some immigration offices were using Form 30A as early as 1919, while some offices continued to use the sheet manifests as late as 1922. From 1919 to 1922, a passenger's name might appear in one or both series.

If you cannot find a reference to your ancestor in Forms 30A, try searching the passenger lists for that period.

The exact title is Return of Destitute Poor Removed from England to Ireland, from the 1st day of December 1860 till the 1st day of December 1862; the Port in England from which, and the Port in Ireland to which, each such Person was removed; also, as far as possible, the Number of Years each such person had resided in England; and the Cause or Authority for and Date of each Removal.

June 28, 2009

I was now ready to fill out the online Request Form and order my ancestor's Chelsea Pensioner Records.

This is where it got a bit confusing. The fields were filled in for me with the Catalogue Reference Number and Details "Customer requested item reference WO 121/1/38 (part of document WO 121/1)"

My uncertainty was over how I could make sure I received all pages (images) for my ancestor Thomas Blandon? It was noted that his record was Image 170 but having had experience ordering other documents such as petitions, I knew that very often there were several pages (images) associated with one individual.

So I decided to check "Copy all pages in this document" and add a note in the details box which stated that I was only interested in the images for Thomas Blandon whose document started on Image 170.

(This is where I believe I made my mistake. I failed to note the word "Or" which was not highlighted in red as I have made it here. So by ticking the radio button beside "copy all pages in this document" I inadvertently had made a choice of one or the other. I did not realize I couldn't add a note in the detail box! If I had simply written out what I wanted in the detail box, and NOT ticked off the "Copy all pages..." I believe I would have received just the papers on Thomas Blandon)

Next I received the following confirmation email:

Dear Lorine

This email is to confirm we have received your order for document copying.Please save or print this email or make a note of the following details. You should quote your order number in all correspondence and queries.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Order number: Cxxxxxx-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Your copies will be produced with the following options:Medium option: Digital ImagesColour option: MonochromeDelivery option: By email

Once completed, your order will be sent to:olivetreegenealogy@gmail.com

Thank you for your order.Regards

Record copying departmentThe National Archives

And so I sat back to wait. And wait. And wait. 3 months later, on June 25th I received a CD ROM in the mail with 864 images. It was the complete microfilm of every soldier who was pensioned out in 1787! So besides paying for these 864 documents, I also paid for the CD ROM to be mailed even though I had requested the less expensive option of picking the records up on the National Archives website. I am sure this was because there was so many images that the National Archives realized it would be quite a task to upload them all and use their server room for 30 days.

I am happy to say though that my ancestor Thomas Blandon had 2 pages (images) on the CD ROM.

June 27, 2009

On April 9, I searched for an English ancestor (Thomas Blandon) on the National Archives site for UK. I found several records for Thomas and I wrote about ordering the records which were held at Suffolk Archives in Ipswich. But one record was held at the National Archives in Kew and that had to be ordered separately.

It seemed fairly easy to order although there were some areas where I was not 100% sure what information I needed to provide. But I read everything carefully and filled the online request out as best I could. A lot is filled out automatically for you once you find a hit and choose to order the documents for that hit. It did seem a bit expensive for what I thought I was ordering (and note the word "thought"....) but I wanted the documents on Thomas badly enought to go ahead. Since it was expensive to have documents mailed I chose the option to have the images uploaded to the website where I had 30 days to download them to my computer.

After ordering what I thought was anywhere from 1 to 5 pages on one specific individual (Thomas Blandon), and waiting for 3 months, I received 864 images - the entire microfilm! Where did I go wrong? How did I end up ordering the records for over 800 soldiers instead of just my Thomas Blandon?

Let me walk you through the process as perhaps I can save others from making the same mistake(s) I did.

I used the search box top right which is a quick search and entered "Thomas Blandon". Several hits appeared and it is the second one down that I wanted.

Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners WO 121/1/38 THOMAS BLANDEN alias THOMAS BLANDON Born WENERSTON, Suffolk Served in Suffolk Militia Discharged aged 48 after 28 years of service See film image number 170 . Certificates of service (disability or reason for discharge, length of service, rank, regiment, Date: 1787.Source: The Catalogue of The National Archives

The next step was to click on the link title Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners WO 121/1/38

This took me to a page which explained the scope of the records, the dates, whether or not it was available publicly and where it is held, in this case, the National Archives in Kew. On the top right, outlined in red is a nice little button labelled "Request This" You simply click on that button and you are taken to a page where you may choose to request an estimate for a printed or digital copy. I had to create an account with the Archives before I could place my order or get my estimate but that is very easy.

I requested the estimate and soon after received an email from the Record copying department with a link to where my estimate could be found. I looked at the estimate, thought it was a bit expensive but decided to go ahead with the order.

June 25, 2009

Live Roots Search Experience, Release TwoBURBANK, Calif. - June 25, 2009 - Genealogy Today announced the second release of the Live Roots search experience. Included in this release are project management tools to help visitors keep track and organize the genealogical resources that they discover while using the search engine.

Throughout the Live Roots search experience, registered members will now see Follow, Comment, Record and Share buttons. These buttons let the members conveniently interface with the new project management tools. Follow is an active bookmarking feature; Comment allows members to post comments on resources; Record lets members make entries in a dynamic research log; and Share is a way to send notices about resources to friends and family via e-mail.

All members will be given a , and may create additional projects as they wish to organized the resources that they wish to track. Within each project, the following features will be accessible:

Recent Activity -- a running history of your interaction with the Live Roots features.

Ancestor Notecards -- profiles of your brickwall ancestors. These profiles are accessible throughout the Live Roots search experience, reducing the times you need to retype the names that you frequently search for.

Related Resources -- items that are "followed", providing a quick method of revisiting them, and when transcriptions are followed, a unique way to search across the items you find most relevant to your research.

Research History -- the dynamic research log. Capture all of your online and offline research activities, whether it be searching an online database or mailing away for documents from an archive.

Personal Library -- catalog your own private collection. A convenient way to simplify research log entries and also a way to share access to your unique resources via lookups.

External Resources -- allows members to configure links to their research activities on other websites (e.g. Flickr, Scribd, Twitter, etc.).

"While we are all very passionate about working on our family histories, the reality is that life frequently interrupts us," commented Illya D'Addezio, owner of Genealogy Today. "With the addition of these new features, Live Roots is better equipped to assist genealogists when these interruptions occur. Follow items that you may want to return to; Post comments to remind yourself what you intended to search for; Record activities that you completed to avoid doing them over again in the future; and Share items with fellow researchers that may have the time to investigate them when you don't."

In order to access the project management section and the follow/ comment/ record/ share buttons, you will need to become a Team Roots member. This free service was launched in 2001 to provide visitors of GenealogyToday.com with password-protected access to special features and content, and is also available on the LiveRoots.com web site.

June 23, 2009

Pennsylvania Ships Passenger Lists begin in 1800 instead of after the Federal Legislation requiring ships Passenger lists to be kept after 1819. The arrival port of Philadelphia kept lists of names of arriving passengers whos personal luggage was over the limit set for exemption from taxes. This gives genealogists a nice set of ships passenger lists from 1800-1820 when full ships passenger lists began.

They include images of the actual manifest and a transcription of the names of the passengers on board. Philadelphia Baggage Lists contain the names of passengers who had to pay taxes on excess baggage. It does not contain the names of passengers who were exempt because their luggage was not over the limit.

This is an ongoing project and currently only Baggage Lists from 1809 are online. All names have been indexed, not just passenger names, but also the names of those shipping luggage or goods, and the names of those where the goods were being shipped.

June 20, 2009

Many years ago, in the days of genealogy records only being available on microfilm (Remember those days? When we had to trudge to a nearby archive or library or Family History Center? When we had to physically crank through reel after reel, page after page of film....), I found and recorded my Levi Peer and family in the 1861 Ontario Canada Census. But I had never obtained an image since my local library did not have a reader printer.

Now that Ancestry.com has put the complete collection of Canadian census records online, I hopped on over to their website to get that image for my files. I searched for lev* peer* (just in case his name was written as Levy instead of Levi, and in case his surname was recorded as Peere instead of Peer) No results.

Okay, I tried the common misindexing of P as R or B - Reer, Beer, Rier and so on. Still nothing.

I knew exactly where Levi and his family were in 1861 down to the lot and concession number. Levi was even on the Agricultural 1861 census on Ancestry.com.

I then tried only his first name (Lev*) and year of birth (1807) plus or minus 5 years either side. Also added the township and county, and got lots of hits but nothing that remotely resembled his surname.

My next step was to use one of his son's names - hoping it was a little less common and perhaps something would turn up that was recognizable as this PEER family. Using his first name, year of birth (+/- 5) and the location I got 2 hits. With my new high speed internet it isn't so tedious for me to load images now so I clicked on both and there they were - mistranscribed under the surname ROSS.

Funny thing is, the image is quite clear. Yes the first letter of the surname might be mistaken for an R. But "oss" for the last 4 letters? Absolutely not!

So remember to not get too hung up on what you know your ancestor's name was - try leaving the surname off. Search under other fields (year of birth, first name, names of children or spouse, etc) and you too may have better success finding that elusive ancestor.

June 19, 2009

A few years ago I discovered a very interesting set of immigration records. While searching New York records on microfilm, I stumbled on a set of Almshouse Records which had the names of ships the Almshouse inmaates sailed on to America (which included USA and Canada). Often the year of arrival was also given.

For individuals recorded 1819-1840 the ship name is given, but not the year of arrival. However you can get a rough estimate based on how long the individual has been in the Almshouse. In the 1855-1858 Almshouse records the information includes ship name, date of sailing, and ports of departure and arrival

Other valuable genealogical information is also found - such as exact death dates, discharge dates, where the individual is from and more. For example, under date 1820 March 11 - Elizabeth Kennedy age 34 is listed as having died June 14, 1820; her daughter Mary Ann died Nov. 5, 1820

In the early 1800's port cities in the USA bore the burden of immigration. By the time they arrived, so many immigrants were tired, hungry and poor they ended up in the City Almshouse. This meant the citizens had to take care of them. At first the citizens of the city asked the Mayors for funds to support the poor. Eventually they asked the states, and by mid-century some states (Pennsyvania, New York, Masschusetts) set up State agencies to deal with the issue. Eventually, beginning in the 1880's, the Federal Government nationalized the programs.

Dating back to the colonial era, New York City assumed responsibility for its citizens who were destitute, sick, homeless, or otherwise unable to care for themselves. The city maintained an almshouse, various hospitals, and a workhouse on Blackwell's Island (now called Roosevelt Island) for the poor.

These online Almshouse records are a wonderful substitute immigration record. At this point I need volunteer transcribers to help finish entering the data to go online, so if you would like to help please contact me through Olive Tree Genealogy - contact email bottom of every page.

June 18, 2009

For those seeking their Canadian roots - what sites have Canadian census records?

There is an updated Comparison Chart on "All Census Records which lists available projects for the Canadian census records (with clickable links) It has been Updated with Ancestry's and FamilySearch new holdings

June 15, 2009

Burial records for the city’s largest cemetery, Mount Saint Lawrence,dating back more than 150 years will now be easily available to the public over the internet

It is now possible to access a copy of the original handwritten entries of burials in Mount St Lawrence cemetery, from 1855 onwards on Limerick City Council’s website, www.limerick.ie

Each entry in the record is handwritten and records the name of the person, thedate of burial, the location of the grave, the age of the deceased and the last residence. With the click of a mouse, it is possible to turn the pages of the book to view the next set of entries.

Mount St Lawrence was first opened in 1849 when a new graveyard was needed inLimerick as a result of the both the 1830’s cholera epidemic and the Great Famine of 1845-1850.

Every person buried has a one line entry and these persons came from every street and lane in Limerick. For many years the majority of entries on a single page are from the Limerick Union and Limerick Lunatic Asylum. These were later known as St Joseph’s Hospital and the City Home.

Tips: in order to view the registers you must first have a DjVu plug-in. You can download this by clicking the DjVu link above and following the steps

Please wait for the files to open. The files are large so download speeds will vary depending on your connection

There are four registers, please click on the links below to access the records:

June 14, 2009

This is very interesting - another freebie from NewspaperARCHIVE.com They've unlocked every front page of their newspapers, which means you can look through millions of unique newspaper front pages.

Just tick off the box labeled "Front Pages Only", type your word or phrase into the Keyword spot and your search will return results from newspapers from 1759 to 2008. You can read about the very first time man set foot on the moon, or President Kennedy's assination.

Maybe you're a military buff or an ancestor fought in WW1 or WW2 or Korea or Vietnam - or some other skirmish. If so, try searching for the name of the War or battle. Just for an idea of what is available I typed in "Korean War" This is what I got!

We discovered 231,272 results for Korean war in our Front Pages I would have to narrow my search to make it feasible to read some of the Front page stories so I would put a year of interest, perhaps even a month. That's easy to do by using the Refine Your Search fields on the right side of the Results Page.

One of my great great uncles Stephen Peer walked Niagara Falls on a tightrope and has the dubious distinction of being the only person to die falling from his tightrope, so I decided to search for anything about him. I used "Niagara Falls tightrope Peer" as my keywords. I got 2 results for Front Page news and a notice that there were 80 other results for my search in inside pages!

One result from the Front Pages was from an 1887 newspaper, the other more recent so I knew the 1887 was probably the one I wanted. And sure enough there it was on the front page of the Semi-Weekly Statesman in Marshall Michigan - the headline read

I copied and saved the article by using the Graphic Select Tool which is to the right of the Text Selector. This Front page article is the first one I've seen that mentioned the possibility of suicide in Stephen's death, so it was interesting from a historical AND a genealogical viewpoint.

June 11, 2009

A source in the UK who has been doing her own transcription of the 1861 Toronto census, wrote to me to share a very interesting (but disturbing) problem with the new 1861 Canada census on Ancestry.com

My correspondent states:

For the past few years I have been working on my own transcription of the Toronto Ontario census for 1861. When the Ancestry.com index and film came online last night I was curious to have a look and found that I could browse the actual film pages.

I was surprised that Ancestry.com only had 8390 images of Toronto, particularly when there were two pages for each folio or household. Thus, Ancestry appears to havecovered only 4195 households in Toronto.

In my inspection I came across one of the pages that the Library & Archives Canada (or its predecessor) used to introduce a ward. This lists the names of the wards and the number of folios used by each:-

This infers that at least 3780 households are missing, and since Ancestry has included the introductory and concluding pages around the wards and the divisions within the wards, this must be an under-estimate.

I have inspected Ancestry.com provision sufficiently to know that the whole of St Lawrence's and St Patrick's Wards have been omitted. I am suspicious that a fair section of St Andrew's (divisions 2-4 inclusive) and St John's (divisions 5 and 6) are also missing, but I have not made a complete check on these as yet.

June 10, 2009

The Ontario Genealogical Society is aware of about 1 200 unregistered cemeteries in this province. "Unregistered" means that the provincial government does not recognize it as a cemetery and so it has no legal protection. It can be removed at whim and without notice.

We have been attempting to get them registered but the Registrar, Cemeteries Act (Revised), has informed us that it is up to the owner of the land where the cemetery is located to apply to have it registered. The Registrar will not simply add them to his list as was done by his predecessor in the early 1990s. Leaving this situation in the hands of the land owners is not satisfactory as they have no incentive to register the cemetery.

OGS is asking for help. They have provided a list of unregistered cemeteries in every County/District in Ontario. If you see a cemetery that is of interest to you, the OGS asks us to write to our MPP asking why it is not registered. Names and Addresses are provided.

Please do your part to help protect these cemeteries where our ancestors are buried.

June 9, 2009

Great news! You can now search for ancestors in the 1861, 1871 and 1881 Canada census, plus view the actual census images.

The 1861 census of Canada is now online, searchable and indexes linked to images of the actual census pages.

Since Canada didn’t officially become a country until 1867, the first national census wasn’t held until 1871. The 1861 Census of Canada is a collection of five provincial censuses. Censuses were taken throughout different times of the year in the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Canada East (Lower Canada, or roughly southern Quebec), and Canada West (Upper Canada, or roughly southern Ontario). Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island only recorded the names of the heads of households, while New Brunswick, Canada East and Canada West recorded the names of everyone in the household.

This database is an every name index to individuals enumerated in the 1871 Canada Census, the first census of Canada since confederation in 1867. National censuses have been taken every 10 years since 1871 and every five years since 1971. The 1871 census includes the four original provinces – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. It is linked to actual images

The 1881 census of Canada, formerly online only as a transcribed text version is now available with indexes linked to actual online images.

June 7, 2009

Bob Moyer brings us this new and rather exciting database which he gathered from many different sources.

The Disastrous American Expedition of 1878 that included the contractors P. & T. Collins (Col. George Earl Church) and the laborers who went to Brazil to build a railroad was also called the "The Railroad of Death" and a "railroad from no-place to no-where".

It was estimated that a worker died for every sleeper that was laid in the jungle and the loss of workers was on a scale that rivaled the Panama Canal project. The purpose of this project is to create a database of names by transcribing newspaper accounts, books and other sources about the expedition.

Careful attention has been given to separate these names from the later Farquar Jekyll expedition of 1907-1912. Thousands of men from many countries lost their lives in both expeditions.

Most of the participants in the 1877-1879 were from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Deleware and New York.

June 6, 2009

The Archives of Ontario has moved to a wonderful new state of the art archives building. We now have the proper facilities to access and research our history but many people are unaware that with the move we now have restrictedhours of operation.

We need your help

* At the present time the hours of operation of the Archives of Ontario are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday only

* In effect this means that any Ontario taxpayer and visitor from outside the province who works fulltime and or lives at a distance not longer have access to their records.

* If we want to have evening and weekend hours we have to make our concerns known.

* We will not get the old hours of 8:15 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday back. A good compromise might be 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The benefit is that those who will visit during the extended hours will have archival staff on hand to advise and assist you them.

Why do we need your help?

* Not all records are available online or will be for the foreseeable future.

* To access the full range of records to research your family you do need to visit archives for such records as estate files, Crown land records, Private Property land records, education records, divorce files, maps, and private papers such as the T. Eaton Co.

What can you and/or your group do?

* Go to the Archives of Ontariowebsite and click on Feedback (left side of page half way down). They ask you to "Please take a few moments to send us your comments by filling in the form below." Politely request extended hours back. Fill in your email address and you will in time get a personal reply. We want to flood the Archives with requests so they can show the government the need for the extended hours.

When contacting your MPP please politely emphasis your use of the Archives of Ontario, its importance to the province and that these are our records and it is our right to have access to them.

* Sign our petition - contact Kathie Orr at kathie.orr@sympatico.ca if you belong to a group who will be meeting over the next month or so and she will email you the petition. In your email please use subject line "Petition re Restricted Archives of Ontario Hours"

* Have your group and any other interested parties sign our petition.

* Encourage others to do the same.

We are counting on YOU to help make the Archives of Ontario a place where all can go to use the documented heritage of our province.

June 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - The federal government is opening the immigration files of millions of refugees, war brides, "enemy aliens" and other foreign nationals in the USA in thefirst half of the 20th century.

A gold mine for historians, genealogists, scholars and descendants, the files include private details on such public figures as Spanish artist Salvador Dali as well as family heirlooms confiscated from Chinese laborers.

The immigration service signed an agreement Wednesday to transfer at least 21 million files to National Archives facilities near San Francisco and Kansas City. A searchable index is at www.uscis.gov/genealogy.

The files were compiled under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. They include photos, visa applications, birth certificates, personal letters and transcripts ofinterrogations of celebrities and unknowns.

Documents in Guerino DeMarco's creased brown file show the gardener was arrested in 1942 and held for three months at New York's Ellis Island after visiting his mother in Italy.

Another Italian, Raffaele Annunziata, registered when he arrived from Salerno in 1948. Like others, he certified that he and his kin were not "idiots," "imbeciles,""feeble-minded" or "insane," and that he was not a "professional beggar" or "anarchist."

St. Mary's, built in 1763, was the second Roman Catholic institution in Philadelphia. It was the site of the first public religious commemoration of the Declaration of Independence. Members of the Continental Congress attended services four times from 1777 to 1781. George Washington worshiped at St. Marys on at least two occasions. Puritan-born John Adams came too.

St. Mary's Catholic Church cemetery includes the remains of Commodore John Barry, known as the "Father of the American Navy"; General Moylan, aid to George Washington; Thomas Fitzsimmons, a member of the Continental Congress who helped draft the United States Constitution; and Michael Bouvier, great-great-grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

This is an ongoing genealogy project and volunteers are needed to help with transcriptions

June 2, 2009

I was antique hunting last month and spotted a beautful ornate framed marriage certificate hanging on the wall. Closer inspection showed it to be dated 1858, New York, and apparently a Quaker (Society of Friends) Certificate.

With the permission of the store owner, I am posting the details and names here. Wouldn't it be great if when we find something of genealogical merit in an antique store, we ask permission to copy the facts for posting online?

Here are the names and dates from the Marriage Certificate. I have tried to reproduce the layout of the signatures as the placement of names on the same line almost certainly indicates a relationship between the individuals.

Andrew Holmes, Monkton, County of Addison Vermont son of Jonathan Holmes & Arletta his wife, and Ruth Cary of Halfmoon, Saratoga Co. New York, daughter of William Cary & Hannah his wife (Deceased). Society of Friends

I'm an incurable collector of
antiques, an avid genealogist and a messy but creative cook! I blog, i write history and genealogy books. My main genealogy website is Olive Tree Genealogy http://olivetreegenealogy.com/